


Reading the Cards

by Winterling42



Series: I am also a We [15]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Flirting, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28925142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Jester and Molly switch card games. An unfortunate discovery is made. Beau investigates.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Mollymauk Tealeaf
Series: I am also a We [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1427866
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

There was an itch somewhere behind Molly’s ribs he couldn’t scratch. Something like dread, or anticipation, or fear. He hadn’t slept well. 

So when he saw a likely lad come strolling into the fair with his mates, well, there wasn’t much question of what to do. Molly needed a distraction as badly as this handsome boy did. And there wasn’t any harm in it. 

“Can I tempt any of you gentlemen with a glimpse into the future?” he called from across the way, dropping his cards from one hand to the other with a grin. He turned his smile on the mark, flashing the Lovers between two fingers. “First taste’s free.” 

The lads all looked at each other, muttering and jostling. Finally they crowded over to his table, all five of them. Already drunk, Molly could tell, but that only made this easier. “One at a time now, one at a time.” He gestured to the rug seat on the other side of his low table. “Five euro for a three card spread, but I _did_ promise a taste now, didn’t I?” He looked over the lot of them with a practiced eye, letting the tension stretch for just long enough... "You. Take a seat, won’t you?” 

The pretty one plopped onto the ground amiably enough, grinning up at his friends as he settled his elbows on his knees. “So what’s the word, doc?” 

Molly let his smile sharpen as he held out the deck. Moment of truth. “Kiss for luck?” 

A round of whistles and jostling surrounded them, but the boy leaned forward to press his lips to the back of the cards. There was a familiar electricity in the air, a heat like victory in Molly’s chest. He was shuffling a green deck of tarot cards, in the open air of the circus...but he was also shuffling a smaller deck—blue-backed Bicycle cards—in a bar that smelled like wine and salt water. His hands on the playing cards, but sitting at a wooden table, with three others around him. 

Molly let his smile soften a little, slow. There was a pile of cash in front of him, mostly coins with a few paper bills thrown in. “What’s the game, gentlemen?” he asked, and when he glanced at the mirror behind the bar it was someone else looking back at him. A girl with blue hair, her expression just as startled as his own. 

Jester dealt the first card. Hummed and nodded in a knowing way at the Ace of Cups Molly had stacked on top. Her eyes darted around to the bright colors of the circus, the expectant boy in front of her. “A very good card,” she said, tapping a finger on her chin. A chalice spilled water into the sea, held by a purple hand and circled by a dove. “Ace of Cups. Your life is...overflowing with potential, possibility.” She pointed to the dove. “Good things are coming.”

Her attendee sat back, his smile crooked. “And it’s five euro for the rest?” 

Jester’s eyes widened, her shoulders straightening. “Yep. Yes, absolutely. Five euro. For each of you,” she adds, looking up at the others standing around her little table. 

“And that’s...a house?” Molly peered at the cards in the middle of the table as everyone else groaned. 

“No, look, there’s no flush or house or any bull _shit_ ,” the old man on his left says with a thick French accent. “You match cards in your hand. You put down matches of three or more. When you have no more matches, you knock.” All three men knocked on the table. One of them without even lifting his head from where he’d placed it after Molly’s last question. 

“ _Right_ ,” Molly eyed his hand dubiously. “And how long have we been playing?”

“ _You’ve_ been playing for an hour. Was getting pretty good too, until just now.” 

“Your future is...ooooh the Wheel of Fortune. This one means you’re going to have a chance at something _really_ good, but the odds are stacked against you.” Jester had both elbows on the table, leaning closer so she could read the names of the cards printed in tiny little letters at the bottom. She’d had no idea there were so _many_!

“So how do I better the odds?” A young man pushed his mop of curly hair off of his forehead, looking at her intently. “Come on, you must know _something_.” 

Jester leaned back, having _entirely_ too much fun. “That’s your last card, you know. Three’s the limit.” 

The boy fumbled in his pocket for another five, but his friends groaned and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, Matt, save it for the way out. We’ve got stuff to do, and I’m hungry.” The desperate one let them pull him away, grumbling to them about his future.

One boy lingered, the first one she’d read for. He looked like he was going to say something, but saw something behind her and hurried off. Jester spun to look up at a giant flabby man coming out from between two tents. He looked at her...and there was something _wrong_ behind his eyes, something _empty_. Jester stood up, and was still almost a foot shorter than him. 

“Readings sound a little different tonight, Mollymauk,” the toad-man said, his tone mild. He was staring after the boy.

“Um...”

Molly locked the bathroom door behind him and turned to face the mirror with both hands on his hips. “What exactly is meant to be going on here?” he asked, and the girl who was _not_ his reflection was standing by the sink. She looked around, saw no one was here, and put _her_ hands on _her_ hips as well.

“Is this what we’re doing?” she asked, mimicking his over-dramatic tone of voice. “Who are you and what do you want?” 

“This isn’t about me,” Molly started, but she only laughed. 

“Of course not! It’s about the two of us, silly.” 

Molly sighed, gave her a bow to concede the point. “My name, then, is Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends.”

“And are we friends, Mr. Tealeaf?” she asked, and her smile was sharp and bright on a cherubic face. 

“We most _certainly_ are, Miss...?”

“Jester.” She stuck out a hand like she’d forgotten any argument. “Jester Lavorre. I’m sorry about your tarot cards, Molly, only it _was_ an awful lot of fun.” 

They were standing side-by-side in the early dark of the circus. Molly watched the pretty boy turn a corner with only the faintest wistfulness. “Gin rummy is a truly terrible game and no one should play it,” he scolded Jester, but he smiled while he did it. “Next time you want to swap cards, give me blackjack or something.”

“So you think there’ll be a next time?” Jester wrapped her arm in his and set off down the main way, looking eagerly at each of the tents. “Oh! Who is that?” She pointed down the way to Kylre, just slipping between two of the tents. Molly was always surprised at how quietly the big man moved. 

“Just another part of the circus, darling.” Molly shrugged. “Can’t pronounce his full name. Most of us call him Kyle, ‘cept for Toya.” 

“He said something to me...” Jester let her voice trail off, but Molly could feel the unease under her words. “I thought he might know I wasn’t _you_.” 

Molly gave the dark alleyway a thoughtful look as he passed by. “I suppose there might be a way to tell. Did you have a Russian accent the whole time?” 

“I don’t _know_. He just...gives me a bad feeling.” 

“You can’t be too picky about your companions in a circus,” Molly told her. “Or in...whatever we are, I suppose.” 

Jester shrugged, but perked up when she saw the game booths with their giant stuffed animals. “Oh, oh, do you think we could play? Just one game?” 

Molly sighed and shook his head, putting both hands in his pockets. “I swear you lot like me only for my circus.” But he let her lead the way, ambling along with a smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Molly looked over the edge of the small cliff into the scrub. Toya had come back to breakfast sobbing that there was a dead person under the flower bush, and he had gone with Gustav to check it out. 

“Probably just a few old tires or something,” Gustav had reassured her. “The light can play tricks like that.” But he hadn’t sounded sure of himself, and now here they were.

Gustav was already down there, standing frozen over the body. Molly could tell it was certainly human, and certainly dead. It was mostly rust colored, with a gaping hole where a neck should have been.

Even so, he could recognize the slack face of the boy he’d been flirting with last night.

Without a word, he took three steps back from the edge and vomited. When he looked up, Beau was crouched across from him.

She was in a shabby hotel room, having stumbled to the toilet when his nausea hit her. “Dude, what the _fuck_?” but there was less animosity in her voice than usual, and more exhaustion. He could feel the deep ache in her muscles that came from hard exercise. 

“Could say the same to you,” he muttered, standing up with a groan. “Did you get hit by a _truck_ or something?”

“Nah, just fists.” Beau grinned and went to rinse her mouth out. “Hangover?”

“See for yourself.” Molly gestured back towards the ditch. He wasn’t going over there. 

Beau walked to the edge. He could tell the exact moment she realized what she was looking at—the swooping feeling in his stomach, the light-headedness as her brain tried to reconcile the living face with the dead one. She sat down, hard. “You knew him?”

“Not really.” Molly started to collect himself as he heard Gustav coming back up around the little hill. “I read his cards yesterday. Well, Jester did.” 

“Fuck, dude.” Under the blunt words, her mind was racing. “What do you think killed him?”

“How would I know?” 

“Molly!” Gustav waved him back over to the fence surrounding the circus. During the morning, everything was packed up, turned off. It was a drab place during the day. Molly felt somehow unsafe outside the fence, like something was crawling up the back of his neck. “We’re going to need to get out of here with some haste.” Gustav spoke quietly and quickly, pressing a wad of cash into Molly’s hands. “I want you to fill up WC’s gas tank. Try and feel out the town, see if anyone’s noticed he’s gone.”

“Gustav, they’re gonna think it was one of us.” Molly didn’t have to think hard to puzzle that one out. “You think we can outrun this?”

The ringmaster gave him a sad smile. “I think some of you might.”

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr at [critical-ramblings](https://www.critical-ramblings.tumblr.com)!


End file.
